From the limited information I have on your campaign, here are my thoughts on how you could make a successful campaign in the future.

1/ 1555 page views is a good start! However for a $6,000 campaign with an average donation of $36, these are the numbers you would need to reach.

If your goal is $6,000 and you have an average donation of $36 you’re going to need roughly...

~166 backers

Your project had a conversion rate of 1.8% (19 backers / 1053 page views), which is pretty standard. Most projects have a conversion rate between 1-2%.

You would need ~9222 page views to reach the goal. (166 backers/ 1.8%)

2/ Appearing spammy is a certain way to not get donations. I know it is difficult when you’re trying to get page views and attention. It is very important for any crowdfunding campaign that you come off as genuine and honest. We have seen that posting on twitter to random strangers (even if they are tweets targeted at people interested in your topic) is never effective.

What can be effective on twitter is starting real conversations with people that could be remotely interested. Trying to ask them questions about what they think about your campaign and getting them engaged. If you want to try this again I’d be happy to sit down and talk about how to do this on twitter. I understand this is hard being a first time user of twitter. People on the internet are always wary of spam, so the more you can come off as not spam the more effective you will be.

3/ Facebook. If you don’t have a large Facebook network, I would not worry about this. How you can utilize Facebook is to get friends and family who do have face books to help post this on their accounts. This is good for two reasons. 1/ you give your friends a way to help out without donating 2/ when a friend posts on their Facebook about your project they are endorsing you as a friend and a scientist.

4/ Journalists. It is very difficult to get journalists to write about you especially at the beginning of the campaign. Journalists like to write about campaigns that are close to success or already successful. They also like to write about controversial topics. The best way to do this is to contact journalists when your campaign is very likely to succeed and give them a press release (essentially write the story for them). Your project is unique in that you are not working a traditional lab. The biohacker angle is a very good one. If you want to try again I’m happy to talk this through.

5/ Printing cards. This can be a very effective strategy especially if you attend conferences or meetups. I know in the Bay there are a lot of biohacker and science related meet ups. When going to those I would recommend asking the organizer if you can have 1-2 minutes at the beginning or end to share your campaign. Show why you are excited about the project and others will be excited too. You can also take donations then and there in cash or with a square reader.

As you know now crowdfunding is not for the faint-hearted. It looks like you’ve put in a lot of effort and are committed to see this project succeed. It also seems like you have a willingness to learn what it takes. I’m happy to talk more about this if you want to run another campaign.